Playing with Fire
by Blackpen Enaru
Summary: The real story of Hades and Persephone. There was no kidnap, rape, or marriage. Queen of the underworld? More like wrongly held political prisoner. From Kore's perspective. Prequel/sister story to She Who Destroys the Light.
1. Chapter 1

A Very, Very Long Time Ago

Someplace in Greece

I grimaced at the pulpy mess that covered the altar. The stone slab was splattered with the gore of pigs, chickens, and goats. Their pink tongues flopped out of their gaping mouths, except the chickens, that is, they did not have tongues that I could see.

"Do the sacrifices please you, Great One?" asked the head priestess. She bowed and fluttered about. "Will you bless us with a good harvest this season?"

I carefully lifted the hem of my robes away from a pool of blood on the floor. What did the mortals expect me to do with a bunch of dead animals? It would be one thing if the meat was actually cooked.

"This is fine," I pronounced. "But next time, I would prefer something more-," Less messy, I wanted to say. "A pair of sandals perhaps. And maybe a nice girdle. Purple. And a bronze stylus."

"A bronze what?"

"Never mind," I said quickly.

I had forgotten that Greek humans were still illiterate. In my humble opinion, this was an embarrassment to our pantheon. A mortal civilization could only be as advanced as the deities that guided it. The Egyptian gods were constantly boasting about how their charges had already discovered geometry.

"The sandals and girdle will do."

"That only goes for Ko-ko," chimed a new voice. I cringed at the pet name. Only one entity ever dared to call me that (especially in front of humans) and that was my mother.

All the priestesses made a groveling fuss as Mother floated (figuratively, not literally, levitation is not a godly power in the Greek world, hence the use of chariots) into the temple. However, I raised an eyebrow at the poppy seeds in her diadem. Centuries of inbreeding may have produced gods that all looked alike, but I was certain that our own worshippers would be able to recognize her as Demeter, the original harvest goddess, as opposed to me, Kore the backup.

I stifled a sigh as the head priestess rattled off my mother's many epithets. No one ever showed such jubilance at my presence.

The earthly woman was a pathetic sight, especially for someone of her status. Like most humans, she wore a crude, itchy looking garment that was tied, not sewn, at the shoulders. Her feet were gnarled and calloused from a lifetime of wandering barefoot. And the filth caked on her body! Someone would have to teach these people how to bathe at least once a month.

Mother inspected the bloody goop on the altar. "What is this?" she said in her Stern Voice To Stop You Cold. It was the tone she would use on me when I was little and had done something naughty, like making her grain spout wings and fly away.

"Why is there so little," she demanded.

"A portion of every sacrifice must now be dedicated to Hestia," the head priestess quivered. "It was just mandated by Olympus itself…"

From the look on Mother's face, she had not read the memo.

In order to prevent any unjustified metamorphoses of innocent humans, I confirmed the matter. "Hestia is simply collecting what we owe her each moon for the heating and fire maintenance bill."

The goddess of the hearth had lobbied fiercely to enact an automatic payment system. Apparently she had long tired of banging on doors to collect late dues.

Mother failed miserably in an attempt to hide her annoyance. Like any supreme being, she hated being wrong. Therefore, she changed the subject.

"Now that you're here, darling, you can't ignore me like you ignore all my letters-."

"Hermes loses a lot of them," I lied.

"You only write when you need to borrow money-."

"That only happened once."

She inspected me critically. "Do you have to wear that all the time?" She sighed. "Of all our relatives, you just had to take after your father."

I thought that statement did not mean much, as our gene pool was fairly limited.

I looked down at myself. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" It was what I usually wore.

"Well, darling, your robe resembles a gigantic sack-."

"At least I'm clothed." Unlike some other gods.

"Your girdle looks like it has been chewed up by mice-."

"Clawed up by a cat, actually."

"Your sandals are grubby, the soles are peeling, and the straps are cracked-."

"I like my shoes broken in."

"Your diadem is tarnished-."

"Technically, it's patinated."

"And your hair hasn't been brushed in days."

That, I conceded.

"You could pass for a human," she finished.

I did not think that was a very nice thing to say before the groveling humans that were pretending not to hear anything, but I let it pass.

"How are you ever going to get a god? You might as well be invisible…"

I let my mind wander as she gave her usual speech- why can't I get a god, even a mortal man, why can't I ever invent something useful, Hermes is such a lovely singer, and Artemis is so good with a bow… etc.

"Do you think you will discover something soon? Not that I'm embarrassed by you or anything, it's just that everyone else's children are so accomplished." She reached into her robes and pulled out a lead tablet. "Technically, I'm not supposed to give this to anyone but I'm sure they won't notice."

"Your Indus Valley pass?" Gaining access to the restricted areas of the Indus Valley was more difficult than getting a Celtic rainbow fae to part with his gold.

"No one will notice you're not me. The guards aren't human, they can barely tell us apart. Don't lose it! With all the extra security and the red adhesive, it takes about three centuries to get cleared for an access permit."

It had only taken her 3 centuries? My own application for a permit had been denied twelve times.

#

The heat of the Valley bore down on my brow as I climbed the rocky stairs. I had to take special care to avoid treading on the trailing robes of the gods walking before me. After the third time I almost tripped on someone else's hem, I wished nudity would come back in style again. Fortunately, our tour group finally paused at one of the designated vantage points.

Our guide turned to face us. "The Indus Valley was populated by mortals from the third to the fifth cycles of the divine cosmos1," she explained, waving her axe at the vast ruins.

Like most dryads, she carried a blade with which to behead anyone who tried to cut down her tree. I did not know why she bothered to carry one here, for I presumed her tree was all the way back in Greece.

"This civilization saw its height during the lifespan of the three footed constellation2, a time that probably corresponded to the golden age of its pantheon."

I craned my neck to see over the vast shoulder of a mountain god. The entire valley was littered with crumbling square structures lined along straight, crisscrossing streets and deep, wide, and long grooves in the ground. It was as if a giant had dragged his heel through the earth, providing the mortals with a grid on which to plan their enormous village.

I studied the enormous crater that had been made in the deeper slope of the valley. The sea glittered calmly in the distance as the workers dug, the archaeologists walked to and fro, and lowly interns fetched refreshments for everyone else. Occasionally, someone would pull a dusty artifact from the earth and start a ruckus. I had never seen anyone get so piqued over a cracked plate. I turned my attention back to the guide, who was flailing her arms with so much enthusiasm that I feared she might hurt someone with her ax.

"We know very little about the gods who had guided this once advanced and powerful society, they disappeared without a trace. The few who remember them recall that they were a reclusive bunch that jealously guarded their secrets. This was, of course, in the time before globalization, when gods of each pantheon kept to themselves and pretended that no one else existed."

I had read about this. The most popular theory offered that the Indus Valley deities wasted away when all their worshippers drowned in a mighty flood. When I looked through my Divoculars, I could even make out mildew stains in the stone lined grooves in the ground, which could indicate a heightened water level.

"This site is important because the ancient gods of this area had apparently given their worshippers the ability to accomplish feats that are difficult to replicate even today. The most remarkable thing is, all the matter in this valley is made of atomos, an earlier form of the four elements. Theoretically, it is not even possible to create a civilization this sophisticated with such archaic magic."

I silently wondered how something as complex and varied as atomos could be the primitive form of four simple elements. Perhaps it was actually the other way around.

The nymph led us into one of the tiny huts that were right off the path. About three of us managed to squeeze inside and huddle around the hollow stone box that stood against the back wall. The rock square was high and thick enough to sit on, but the inside let off a faint, rotten stench. I leaned over and saw a deep tunnel that led straight into the ground.

"There are many of these around the compound," our guide said in a hushed voice. "The people of the Indus Valley obviously did not fear their own mortality, for they built these direct portals into their underworld."

I rolled my eyes. If the Indus Valley's god of the underworld had been anything like ours, I doubted that anyone would have made haste to meet him. Gods were so quick to assume everything was meant for worship. If anything, I thought the portal would have made an excellent toilet, it already smelled like one.

We soon left the stinky little room and progressed along the path. I half listened to the dryad as I watched the diggers bent over their work.

"…particular interest to many gods around the world… learn the secrets of their mysterious Indus Valley counterparts…mortal ruins… only surviving clue about the Lost Pantheon of the Indus Valley."

As a centaur distracted our guide with a question, I quietly left the group and climbed over the rail that kept tourists out of the excavation area. I happened to be one of the gods who wished to unearth the secrets of the Lost Pantheon. Archaeological evidence suggested that their long lost agricultural methods were far superior to the ones known now.

A security guard came rushing over to me on his stork-like legs. His hairy face contorted into a scowl. "Credentials?" he snapped in Prakrit.

I presented my mother's tablets, hoping he would not notice that I had replaced her portrait with my own. He held them up and squinted his beady eyes. "Harvest, Greece, Class Beta research permit, agriculture," he muttered. He tapped the lead documents with a sharp talon. "These are awfully old, aren't they," he asked suspiciously. "We started reissuing papyrus credentials about forty years ago."

I stifled a snort. I was quite certain that the powerful Egyptian lobby had been responsible for this switch from durable lead tablets to flimsy papyrus scrolls. "They're still valid aren't they?" I asked coolly. "I hear there are some gods who still use stone tablets. Have you denied them access as well?"

The guard apologized insincerely and returned my mother's credentials. "The flagged parts are off limits." He clicked his beak in a rather menacing way.

I nodded and securely tucked the documents away, remembering Mother's lecture about red adhesive.

"Dee-meh-teh!" someone cried. I froze and scanned the area for the fowl security guard. I slowly turned around, hoping the speaker would not raise a fuss when he realized I was not, in fact, whom my credentials claimed.

"Demeter?" Another god poked his head up from his digging. A small crowd began to form around me. "Demeter who discovered the Common Creation Concept?"

"No, she's my mother," I said loudly. I immediately realized what a silly admittance this had been when everyone began to request autographed portraits, the dirt from beneath her sandals, or locks of her hair.

"Ven she be back?" someone demanded.

The first speaker must have noticed my annoyance, for he shooed everyone away. "Apologies, you look just like her. I am Chac of the Maya," he bowed. "Fertility, agriculture, rain, and thunder." He spoke slowly, as if Prakrit was difficult for him.

I bowed back. "Kore of Greece. Harvest. Do you prefer Egyptian? Or perhaps Arabic?" Aramaic was also one of the lingua franca of the millennia, but I could only read it, and very slowly at that.

Chac looked delighted, even with tears constantly pouring down his scaly green face. I knew that in Mayan culture, the flow of tears symbolized rain and fertility. Personally, I thought that gushing liquid from a different kind of eye was a better indicator of the latter.

"It is an honor to meet you, Koe-oh-ray." Chac's Arabic was much better than mine. "You are here to study agriculture as well! Excellent. Those war gods," he threw a dark glance at a group of rather belligerent looking deities, "are hoping to excavate a better alloy with which to forge weapons."

I nodded politely.

"I have not seen Dee-meh-teh in centuries. Why does she not come to the Indus Valley anymore? If the development plan gets ratified, this place will no longer be the same!"

"Development plan?"

He made a sound of contempt. "Some gods want to make this place more tourist-friendly by building a replica of the Lost Civilization over the ruins that have already been excavated. Apparently the fees for the research permits are not enough to support the local economy." He shook his head and giggled sadly. "The pro-development lobby also claims that a revitalized public interest in the Indus Valley would be the best way to fund archaeological studies.

"The archaeologists and historians are all against it, of course. But the Board of Historical Preservation seems to thinks this is a modest proposal."

"A modest proposal!" I scoffed. "We may as well eat babies to end starvation! How could anyone replicate a lost civilization when we do not even completely understand it? Would they even bother to build everything from atomos?"

"Atomos was the obsession of Dee-meh-teh as well. Speaking of which…" My mind wandered as Chac strolled next to me, chattering about the newest discoveries, pointing out various gods and what they hoped to find. "That's As Shalla from Assyria, she's studying the unique strain of grain that once grew here… There's Zoroaster, he's trying to reproduce the Indus plumbing system…"

"Is anyone here interested in atomos?" I interrupted.

He looked surprised, or at least I thought he did. It was hard to tell with a being like him. "Your mother devoted much of her life to studying atomos, and yet she ended up abandoning her research in despair and frustration. If she cannot find anything conclusive, it is unlikely anyone else will."

"But I am her daughter," I finished for him.

"Indeed," he smiled.

We walked in silence as he left me to my thoughts. Chac had unknowingly solved a minor puzzle for me, why my mother had become so adverse to any mention of atomos.

My earliest recollection was that of my mother waving these marvelous spinning spheres and discs above my head. They were no bigger than my infant fist and tingled when I grabbed them. Some of them would sink into my cradle while the others would float of their own accord.

Since atomos at normal size were very difficult to see, she would enlarge them to better scrutinize their contents. While I used atomos for the sole purpose of childish entertainment, Mother would study them fervently. The walls of our home were always coated with wax so she could easily carve and rub out complicated equations in order to discover the mystery of atomos.

Then suddenly one day, when I was but a toddler of twenty years, my atomos playthings were replaced with more normal toys like self playing harps, purple fire, and unicorns. I paid little heed to this loss, I was too preoccupied with trying to invent a more efficient form of agriculture. It mainly consisted of a bag of seeds placed over a large explosive buried in the middle of an unplowed field.

I reckoned that she had eventually lost the patience to see through with her research, and was disgruntled by any reminder of her own failure. If I were to learn the means of controlling atomos, it would be much more significant than her discovery of the now-famous PanGaia theory, or, to use the politically correct term, the "Common Creation Concept." I would no longer be the underachieving child of a brilliant scientist. Instead of "Demeter's daughter," I'd be Kore.

I liked the idea of succeeding where my mother had not. Fueled with determination, I decided to keep returning to the Indus Valley to find something substantial to present.

#


	2. Chapter 2

I was desperate to claim credit for some fascinating invention that would bring in research grants. There was no way I was moving back in with my mother.

Dionysus always said that a moderate amount of wine could awaken one's inner Muse. Of course, his interpretation of "moderate" had a tendency to fluctuate depending on how drunk he happened to be at any given time. Nonetheless, I thought the time was ripe to follow his advice.

I arranged to meet some friends at a rowdy bar, although I rarely frequented such places. Besides, a Slavic god was slated to come and provide free samples of his new wine that was distilled rather than fermented. I was hardly one to turn down free alcohol, or free anything, for that matter. This was one of the reasons my home was cluttered with so many useless items. This always dismayed my nymphs, who were forbidden from clearing the floor of my private quarters.

Upon my arrival, I breezed through the Very Important Deity line and skimmed the room for people I knew (and cared to associate with.) I spied Peneus' tall, lanky frame next to a circle of torches and settled into a cushion next to him.

I waved down the server and ordered a small goblet of the weakest and sweetest wine. "Water it down," I instructed.

"How is your explosive agriculture research?" Peneus asked.

"How is your sex life?" I replied rhetorically.

"Actually, there's this Nereid-."

I sat up. "Do you like her? Do you even know her?"

"I haven't had sex in a year!" He looked constipated. "I don't care if I like her."

"I haven't had sex in fifty," I said sadly. That was a conservative estimate.

"That's because you told that bigmouth god you had a disease."

"It was supposed to be funny!" And flirtatious.

"You also told him that you wanted to rub him over with sweet and sour sauce."

Fortunately, Hestia came by to herd the crowd farther away from the torches, which were secured on tall stands.

"Out of the way, everyone!" she shouted. "These torches are going to shoot a lot of sparks tonight, stay behind the yellow line!"

I hastily complied. When it came to fire, Hestia always made good on her promise.

"Hey Hestia!" someone called. "My hearth is all blocked up, can you come by and clear it? My house is freezing!

"I'm a pyrotechnician, not a maid," Hestia muttered.

Nor was she a maiden, as she was often teased. Her line of work required her to wear heavy, flame retardant robes that covered her entire body. Her unflattering attire, which included a sooty veil over her face, supposedly protected her flesh from both sparks and masculine attention, the latter of which was completely unintentional on her part. Nonetheless, if she was a maiden, that made as penetratable as a stone statue.

The fireworks went off, the music crescendoed to a halt, and a god climbed on top of a table. He held a funnel to his lips to amplify his voice.

"I am Radegast!" he bellowed. "I come all zee vay from zee Volga, because I love zee Greek people!"

The roars of approval caused a small earthquake. Glasses crashed to the floor and the torches swayed from the ceiling.

"I am zee god of hoz-pee-tality and crops. Vare are all zee err-zen and friendly gods in here?"

This earned him another bout of screaming. As a fellow earthen deity, I chose to clap in a dignified manner. I was not drunk enough to yell like a savage, nor did I plan to become that way. Ever.

"If you combine hoz-pee-tality and crops, zee logical result is a potato distilled dreenk to provide to your guests, no? For zee first hour, zee potato dreenk is on me!"

The music blared again and the crowd whooped. However, one person was clearly unhappy.

"Some gods will ferment anything," Dionysus sniffed. "Potatoes come from the ground." He refused to accept one of the tiny glasses that were being distributed.

"It's distilled, not fermented," I informed him.

The sample size cups did not even have a stem, and I could almost wrap my thumb and forefinger around the rim.

"Dreenk, you Greeks!" Radegast shouted. "Put your hands up!"

We did as we were told as scores of bar attendants sprayed the air with the potato liquor. Some people opened their mouths to catch the droplets. As soon as my cup filled up, I took a sip and coughed.

"Not like that!" Apollo showed up out of nowhere. "You gulp it down all at once." He demonstrated and bit a wedge of lime. I was very impressed, but wasn't sure what the lime was for, it appeared to be a masculine display of strength. Before I could ask, he ran off to find a bed mate for the night.

Peneus and I clinked glasses before we attempted to consume the vile liquid. "To explosive agriculture," I grumbled.

"To finally moving out of your mother's shadow," Peneus smirked.

The flavor of this potato wine was truly appalling. However, it was free, which made all the difference. I mixed sugar into my next cupful.

Fortunately, the burn and the taste became less noticeable with each drink. Also, the effect of the alcohol worked surprisingly fast. I started to see its appeal.

I wandered to look for Mithra, a diplomat and friend from Persia. He was sitting next to a lovely blond goddess I did not recognize, although that could have been because everything was blurry.

Peneus clapped him on the back and gripped his hand. "So you seem popular," he grinned.

Mithra laughed good-naturedly. "That would have been perfect if you had said that more quietly."

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you going to rut this tramp tonight?" I sang. I felt it was a perfectly innocent question, I could not understand why all the males in earshot winced. Someone made me finish a cup of water, "for the good of all the menfolk trying to get lucky tonight," he told me.

I was soon insisting on buying everyone drinks, especially the potato wine, since I somehow felt a special connection with Radegast. He was a god of crops, I was a goddess of the harvest. I did not want to disappoint my Slavic friend, for some reason he kept encouraging us all to purchase more of his fine product.

#

Bang! Bang! Bang! I surmised that someone was knocking on my door, and rather insistently at that. I clutched my head and curled up in bed, hoping one of my attendants would answer the door soon and send the person away. However, an official looking ghost appeared at the entrance to my bedroom. Her cloudy form flickered, as if she was somewhat solid.

"I represent your financial institution," she said in a cool, professional tone that must have been perfected by centuries of dealing with hysterical clients. "I want to verify some suspicious expenses that were made on your credit disc last night. We have reason to believe that you may be a victim of credit fraud."

My bank was located in the underworld, along with everyone else's riches, so it only made sense that a dead spirit would come to haunt me about my expenditures. I glanced at the small iron circle that was poking out of my pouch. For once, I wished it had indeed been stolen.

The ghoul flipped through her notes. "Did you charge a total of 40,000 gold ingots to your credit tablet last night? At the Giddygod Bar?"

Forty thousand?? That couldn't be right. I did some painful calculations in my throbbing head as I recalled the many new friends I had made in the course of a few hours.

"Yes," I sighed. The ramming in my skull suddenly became worse. I secured a laurel wreath around my head to help alleviate the pounding. It was one of Dionysus' most useful inventions. If only he could also invent a locking mechanism on credit discs!

She pulled out a tablet. "Please sign here."

I did so.

"And here. And here. And here. Thank you." She floated away with a skip in her gliding.

"I'll be paying off the interest for the next decade," I groaned. "Especially now that Hades raised the interest rates."

#

I dug, scraped, and dusted away to reach the older layers of the grounds. While the other gods were interested in actual relics, I wanted to excavate individual atomos that had yet to bond. I sketched their structures, noted their properties, and tried to break each atomos apart.

The poultry security guard, the one who had apprehended me on my first visit here, was perched in a tree and glaring at my every move. When I glanced at him, he made a jabbing motion towards his eyes with his second and third digits, and pointed at me with a claw, in an I'm watching you gesture.

I empathetically pointed at my own eyes in the same way, then held up a single finger, the middle one, to be exact.

I was glad to see that our cultural differences did not keep him from comprehending my message. Satisfied with my diplomatic accomplishment, I bent my head once more.

I had had to special order a micro-woven sieve from Egypt so I could use it to sort the atomos from the dirt. It was a tedious task, literally trying to pick out sparkling specks among the reddish grains of earth.

To my great annoyance, I had to store different types of atomos separately because some of them would bond too easily. Once atomos combined to create mass, I could not separate them again.

I found that the upper levels of soil had increasing levels of a foreign substance that I could not quite identify. The presence of these tiny white grains seemed to have a correlation with soil exhaustion. Also, the estimated age of the soil levels that were less fertile seemed to match those of the giant scratches in the ground.

Thirsty, I went to the sea for a drink. My friend, Yu Huang Da Di, one of the Chinese gods, was already crouching on the beach, washing a basketful of vegetables. Since we were both new to the area, we had naturally become fast friends. When I knelt next to him, he greeted me in Prakrit, our preferred common tongue. Neither of us was as fluent in Arabic, and we spoke different dialects of it.

"Hello, Ko-rei!" he beamed.

I responded in kind as I conjured a gourd and dipped it into the sea. I declined his offer of salad.

Yu Huang Da Di took a bite of a cucumber and spat it out immediately. "This is nasty!" he cried.

"Next time, make sure your vegetables are fresh."

I drank deeply from the gourd and spewed everything out. "It is the water," I choked. Somehow, the awful taste was strangely familiar. I stared at the miniscule white flecks floating in the water.

I thought back to my infant days when I used to play with atomos. Some would repel each other while others would collide and disappear, turning into a white crystal that had the most distinctive taste. I soon learned to stop putting these crystals in my mouth, for they would make my throat beg for water.

"Stupid us," said Yu. "There is sign saying the water is not potable."

"Since when does anyone read instructions?" I asked.

#

I initially thought little of the thirst crystals, I could find no purpose for them. I also could not understand why they were present in seawater and the upper levels of soil. Then I eventually deciphered some ancient texts that referred to saudaem kleryit, or SALT for short, a substance that was apparently important for preserving food, enhancing flavor, and even softening bathwater. I found that I also liked it on the rim of a goblet of imported MesoAmerican ambrosia, or amborita, as it was called.

I eventually noticed that two types of atomos always fused quickly to create those thirst causing, white crystals from my childhood. One of the atomos had 11 balls in the center cluster and 3 spheres orbiting it. The other had 17 and 3, respectively. I made a note of this using the notations I had developed to identify each atomos.

"11-3alpha + 17-3alpha = thirst crystals (saudaem kleryit?)."

It was decent start.

My notes on atomos piled up as high as a mountain, so I had to find a cave in which to keep my tablets. Despite all this effort, I could not force the single atomos to break down into a smaller unit. I knew it was possible, I just could not fathom exactly how. Nonetheless, my work was sufficient enough to present to the world. I began to write a research tablet based on my initial findings. Starting it was easy, finishing it was another story.

#

I stared at my sheet and tapped my stylus. I lacked coherent research to substantiate my thesis, not that I had a thesis at all. What was the point in having divine powers if I couldn't make a tablet write itself? I scrutinized what I had already written so far.

"Atomos are tiny, spinning, sphere-like things. They are very important. They make up all matter. They are like the four elements, but more complicated. Please publish this thesis, I really need a lot of fame and credit. Thank you."

No, that would not do at all.

#

One day, when I returned from another excursion in the Indus Valley, I found a small mountain of letters where my nymphs always left it for me. I shuffled through it. Mother.. Mother.. Mother… the latest was dated 2 hours ago and the earliest was yesterday. Amazed, I walked into my room. Mother was sitting on my bed, looking worried and weepy. She was fretfully petting my pet snake, Longous. When she saw me, she looked immensely relieved.

"Ko-ko! Where have you been?" she cried? "You haven't been responding to your letters for an entire day! I know you don't like it when I visit but I just had to see if you were home… Your nymphs didn't know where you were, I nearly turned them into sirens…"

I looked at my floor and desk, which was usually cluttered. I could actually see the surface. She followed my glance.

"I cleaned up a bit for you dear, the nymphs refused to do it, said you didn't like it. I kept stepping on everything, so I organized everything for you. Isn't it much nicer this way?"

I didn't answer. No one. Touches. My. Mess. I took a deep breath.

"I hope you invent something that becomes famous dear. It's about time too. Hermes invented the lyre when he was just an infant. Apollo is a great singer, what talents can I brag about?"

"Where is my file? It was right there on the floor, underneath my old robe."

"I put all your tablets on your desk."

"Now I don't know where anything is!" I wailed.

"I don't see how you could have known where anything was to begin with!"

This went on until my cat meowed to be fed. I doubted she was really hungry, but she always liked to be in the center of attention. I had named her Jealous for a reason.

#

A few moons later, I realized that my credit mishap from the Giddygod Bar was the least of my problems. By this time, my research tablet was not quite complete but I was already was aching to turn it in and never lay eyes upon it again. I knew it was terrible, but I was weary of rewriting it. Besides, it had to be sent by the next sunrise. I still had an entire night, as the sun was just about to set. I looked over the conclusion for what felt like the hundredth time.

It is my theory that the Indus Valley flourished because ofatomos, not despite it. After all, there are many higher quality substances, such as "sdteeil" or "saudaem kleryit," that are only found in this area and cannot be created with any combination of air, earth, fire, and water. On the other hand, it appears that ambrosia is the only matter that can be exclusively produced with the elements.

Unlike the four elements,atomosapparently have the ability to bond and form matter without divine intervention. This holds some interesting implications for the long-gone society of the Indus Valley, whose gods had obviously used an atomic system. In the absence of elements, the self regulatingatomosmay have relieved the gods of what would have been an impractical workload.

Another interesting quality is thatatomosseem unaffected by the moods or tempers of gods. While a god under great stress may inadvertently alter the elements around him to cause a natural phenomenon upon the mortal earth,atomosseem to be completely independent of a god's disposition.

Contrary to popular belief, there is much evidence to suggest thatatomosare actually a refined and improved version of the elements. It is very possible that there was a time when the use ofatomoswas commonplace, at least in certain parts of the world. Somehow, the magic ofatomosmust have been lost with those who used it and dismissed as the lesser version of the elements. Once atomos are fully understood, it is my ultimate ambition to phase out the elements with atomos in a step by step process.

I hesitated, then rubbed out the last line with the blunt end of my stylus. The impression of the words was still faintly legible, but not deep enough to show up in a mold.

I sighed and drew a hand over my face. If I had written on wax, stone, clay, or papyrus, I could have easily fixed the mistake with magic, but the volatile composition of fire and earth in metals made it difficult to alter or replicate lead.

My writing was an abomination, absolutely not my best work. The research was weak, the wording was poor.

In retrospect, I should have spent more time on the tablet instead of challenging Ares to a chariot race, staring blankly into space, shopping for a new diadem I did not need, practicing martial arts with Athena, eating massive amounts of frozen ambrosia, diving to catch my own seafood, blighting the crops of a mortal farmer who had used my name in vain, painting a self portrait, taking singing lessons with sirens, attempting to win an argument with my mother, casting vermin into the underworld to annoy Hades, chasing squirrels, writing satirical fiction, enchanting a mirror so it could talk back, having a fireball fight with Artemis, trying to convince five of Aphrodite's men to engage in coitus with me at the same time, offering guided tours of Olympus, and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I had nothing to show for these adventures, perhaps with the exception of my marvelous painting.

I glanced ruefully at the guidelines for publication.

"The research tablet must be dated and sent by the sunset of the 495thday of the stellar calendar," it read.

I gave a start. The sunset? Of the 495th day? I looked at my calendar. That was tonight! And the sun was setting- right now! I had to catch Hermes before he went off duty. I knew he must be making his last rounds to collect mail right now, unless he had already gone home for the day.

I grabbed a blank sheet of wax and melted it over the lead tablet. I half yanked, half peeled off the carbon copy, almost tearing it in the process. Then I slammed my hand on top of the impression and concentrated, willing it to multiply. The next moment, I found myself trapped in the middle of towering piles of wax leaves.

I blasted my way through the barrier, tripped over some stray pages, and ran outside, clutching a fistful of sheets. I spied Hermes in the distance, he was still collecting mail from my neighbors while taking swigs from a blue and silver bottle. "Rouge Bovigne," it read. Meanwhile, the sun was rapidly sinking into the hills.

"Hermes!" I shouted. He turned and his jaw dropped. Everyone stared at me as I raced over and thrust my research tablet into his hands, making him slosh his refreshment everywhere. "Date it now!" I screamed. Looking positively frightened, he fumbled through his pouch, pulled out a seal, and stamped in on my correspondence, just as the sun slipped out of sight. I sighed with relief.

"You have wax all over you," Hermes told me. He gingerly plucked a chunk out of my hair.

"And I spilled your drink all over you." I apologized and used my sleeve to dab at the red stains on his garment.

Then I noticed his sandals, which were normally a pristine white. They were now completely soaked in Rouge Bovigne, and a very bright red. The wings on his ankle straps flapped irritably.

"I also ruined your shoes," I lamented.

"Nice shoes!" someone remarked.

"They do make your feet stand out," I agreed. "They look… bigger." Also, the unnatural pigmentation of his drink was probably better off on his sandals rather than in his stomach.

Hermes grinned. "You know what they say about big feet." He handed me a bundle of mail. "Big shoes!"

#

A few weeks later, I received a letter informing me that my tablet had been accepted for publication. I was also invited to speak about my research at the 8th Centennial Conference of Environmental Deities. I smiled. Being the daughter of a famous goddess did have its advantages.

Risking the wrath of Athena, I commissioned a team of spiders to spin me a new silk robe for the Conference. She had a thing about arachnids, but I had an entire world to impress.

#

When the Conference finally came, it was even duller than the eyes of a Maenad with a hangover.

The foreign god droned in a language that resembled coughing and grating. I stifled a yawn and held the seashell away from my ear as a nymph whispered translations into another shell that was connected to mine by a long string. Unlike gods, nymphs had the gift of tongues, so many were employed to act as instant translators during global gatherings. Unfortunately, the Opening Address was not worth comprehending.

"Our worlds are vastly different, and yet we all share a common origin," came the small voice from the shell. I flexed my numb feet as a blue goddess discreetly stretched all four of her arms under the table.

The speaker continued, oblivious to his bored audience. "…We agree that in the beginning, there was a Shared Nothing from which our progenitors came. No matter which part of the world it comes from, virtually every historical account claims that the world started with some form of darkness and water."

The yellowish god sitting to my right tugged at the throat of his leathery outfit. Having no skin of his own, he wore what bore a suspicious resemblance to flayed human skin. Knowing the Aztecs, it probably was. I did not need to understand his native tongue to deduce what he was saying. "Not the creation speech again," the Aztec groaned.

"…It was Demeter who first discovered that this Shared Nothing gave birth to a united land mass in which all of our respective earth mothers were huddled together. But they soon grew tired of this constant embrace, so they scattered across the water and each paired with the heavens above her. Each set of sky and earth developed in distinct ways, but we cannot deny our common past.

"This means our soil is the same. Our methods of tending the earth should be the same. This means we have a reason to meet. Thanks to Demeter's persistent research on the Common Creation Concept, we are here."

One of the goddesses at my table fiddled with the placard in front of her.

"…With that, I welcome you to the 8th Centennial International Conference of Environmental Deities. It is my honor to introduce our keynote speaker Kore, none other than the daughter of Demeter. She is here to present her latest publication."

I sighed. Always compared to Mother. Nonetheless, I graciously smiled and walked to the center of the stage. The audience members were clearly disappointed. They were all thinking, why couldn't it have been Demeter? Well, I'd show them.

"Thank you," I started. A chorus of unfamiliar tongues repeated my words into seashells. "I bring from the Indus Valley an ancient and discarded magic, possibly the equals of the elements."

I beckoned to the stagehand, who brought me a platter covered by a domelike lid. I pulled off the cover and revealed a collection of colorful, spinning shapes that had been enlarged to the size of my hand. They hummed intensely as some floated in the air and others rolled around on the tray.

"Each of these balls is a single atomos that has been amplified to be over a few billion times its natural size." I froze one of them in mid orbit and enlarged it so it was almost as big as I. "As you can see, atomos consist of a cluster of smaller spheres in the very center. This core is surrounded by several independent orbs that keep moving in a circular motion."

I reached into the center of the atomos and pointed at the core. "Each of the balls in the center has either positive or neutral energy. The spheres that spin around this bundle are negatively charged. Atomos use some invisible force to combine at the outmost layer of the negative orbs. It is my belief that air, earth, fire, and water are not alone in being the smallest units of matter. Atomos may have once served the same purpose-…" I demonstrated this by combining 11-3alpha and 17-3alpha to make thirst crystals, or saudaem kleryit, to use the scientific term.

I eagerly looked at the audience to gauge its reaction, but most of the gods seemed disappointingly indifferent. When I completed my presentation, the applause sounded lackluster, perhaps it was only so to my hopeful ears.

I offered to take questions, but I regretted this as soon as the first reporter stood up.

"Eris from Olympian Monthly," she said smoothly. "You know, as well as everyone else, that elements are perfectly functional, correct?"

I frowned. This was a press conference, not an interrogation. "Of course they work-."

"But you want to replace elements, which we are all familiar, with an outdated magic, correct?"

"Atomos aren't outdated, they simply needs to be revived-."

"Isn't it true you see yourself at the head of this revival? What do you have to gain from promoting a magic that only you know how to use?"

Several of the audience members suddenly became wide awake. Reporters scraped away at their tablets.

"I never said-."

With a flourish, Eris whipped out a wax sheet and read off of it with emphasis in all the wrong places. "'Once atomos are fully understood, it is my ultimate ambition to phase out the elements with atomos in a step by step process.'"

My cheeks flushed. This insolent demi-goddess, how dare she…

"Did you write this?" She thrust the sheet in the air for the world to see. "With your own hand and personal knowledge?"

_In a sleep deprived state, you lowly scum_, I thought. I struggled for a more appropriate answer, there were children present, some of them looked no older than 50.

Leave it to Eris to twist a benign suggestion that was never meant for the public eye. To my immense gratitude, someone handed me a wax copy of my tablet. I grabbed it and squinted at the bottom. Faint but there it was, the last line I thought I had rubbed out properly. "I- I, well-." I fidgeted.

"Yes or no, Madame!" she roared.

"Yes!"

Everyone gasped with the melodrama normally accorded to a soap play.

"That was from a first draft," I admitted carefully, struggling to regain my composure. It was too late to deny what had already been done, people would think I was merely trying to take back a statement because of its unanticipated controversy. "But I meant in the long run, if it is even feasible, we do not even understand it completely yet… and only partially…"

"No further questions," Eris said dismissively. She sat down with the smug air of someone who had exposed a criminal. The other reporters jumped from their seats, shouting questions, but the moderator hurried to the podium.

"I'm afraid the time has elapsed for questions!" he shouted over the noise. Then he introduced the speakers of the panel, one of whom included the celebrated Emesh of Sumeria, god of summer."

The rest of the conference was rather eventless. Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, gave a lecture on flower pollination, Peko from Estonia taught us his special way of growing barley… I doodled on a scroll of papyrus until the Closing Address.

Although I usually disliked having to make meaningless small talk, I lingered to speak with my fellow environmental gods from around the world.

"I remember you!" someone chuckled. His nametag identified him as Rongo-ma-tane, the Maori god of cultivated crops and food. "You're the one who used to insist that seasons are caused because the earth mothers run around the sun gods!"

My cheeks burned like Hephaestus' furnace. I had abandoned that silly hypothesis decades ago. Everyone knew that seasons changed whenever Atlas shifted the weight of the sky on his shoulders, pushing Apollo's chariot closer to a different corner of the earth. At least, that was how it worked in the Greek world. I heard there was a place where some poor goddess caused winter whenever she mourned the loss of her kidnapped daughter.

A giant feathered serpent slithered up to me and started hissing. I eyed his human translator with disapproval, the boy had not even bothered to comb his hair for the job. "Aren't you a spring goddess? Isn't your expertise in tending flowers?"

"If you must attribute a specific season, autumn would be more appropriate. Technically, I'm a goddess of the harvest," I explained. "It's a very broad field that encompasses all parts of the environment, including its composition."

The interpreter began to hiss and the snake looked at me dubiously.

It did not take me long to realize that no one was taking me very seriously, even though I was the daughter of famous Demeter.

Somewhat discouraged, I returned home to Enna, which was far from Olympus and close to one of the few remaining nymph-owned nectar bars. On principle, I refused to buy anything from the green mermaids who were gaining a rapid monopoly on the beverage business. When I ordered an Ambrango Apricot Attack, the Oceanid at the counter asked for identification.

"What?" I blinked. I came here all the time and had never been bothered about it.

The nymph gestured at a large red and yellow sign that read, "Not immortal, No ambrosia. WE TABLET." "We were almost shut down by a sting operation," she apologized. "New policy, even regulars gets tableted."

I rummaged through my bag and recalled the good old times when immortals had been few enough that we were all known by name. Thanks to Zeus, gods were now as common as weeds, the bad kind, not the kind that I liked to grow.

After a few minutes, my order was ready. "Kore, Ambrango Apricot Attack," called the employee.

I morosely sipped my drink as I wondered if I would ever be able to complete my project. If my mother had failed, what were my chances? Drops of rain began to fall from the sky.

"Oh bother," I muttered. I tried to cheer myself up to make it stop raining, but it was to no avail. My mood did not improve when I passed a news rack and the unflattering headlines on the tablets.

"DAUGHTER OF FAMOUS SCIENTIST CLAIMS MATTER IS MADE OF TINY SPINNING BALLS. IDIOT GODDESS INSISTS THAT ELEMENTS ARE OBSOLETE. KORE: A FRUIT THAT HAS FALLEN FAR FROM THE MOTHER TREE," they screamed.

It only began to rain harder. I rushed back home to find a most interesting letter. It was the sender that surprised me the most.

To my beloved child,

I congratulate you on the publication of your research tablet on atomos. However, there is no reason for you to meddle in such obsolete and pointless magic, much less try to reintroduce it. It is my desire that you spend your time on more constructive matters. Your uncles Hades and Poseidon agree with me. I am your father and your king, you will obey me.

Your father, supreme ruler of the gods, lord of the heavens,

Zeus

I narrowed my eyes. I could not understand why Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon would care about an obscure branch of magic that was just a theory. Unless, of course, the Big Three did not want my discoveries to receive widespread credit. Zeus, especially, hated having anyone outdo him. He, the king of the Greek gods, would want to be the first to discover anything so important. If a new and powerful magic were to be harnessed, he would want it done under his terms, under his control. He must have been furious when my mother had proved the PanGaia theory! Still sore from the negative reception at the conference, I inscribed a reply on a clean tablet.

Father,

If you are not too busy engaging in the rape of maidens to read this personally, please note that I use the word "Father" in the loosest of ways, not unlike your scruples. I am grateful to you for giving me life but you have spawned enough to form five legions, so perhaps this is not an exclusive honor after all. Judging by the attention you have granted me during my short five hundred years of life, I am a mere private in your army of loyal children. Even so, this humble foot soldier has often heard that the general will occasionally take the form of a pig or a swan during his conquests. May I suggest that a cockroach's body is most suitable for you? A cockroach is filthy, difficult to kill, and breeds like no other. Death to ignorance and petty jealousy.

Your beloved child,

Kore

I knew this letter would never reach him, he had an administrative team that briefed him on important correspondences. Still, it gave me some satisfaction to raise the hackles of his lackeys.

#

When I landed on Olympus, I squeezed my chariot in between a pair of tremendous monstrosities. The less decorative of the two sported elephantine horns, arm length spires on wheels of solid gold, and room enough for eight fat people. Six gleaming horses stood before it, tossing their manes and eating all the grass. I shook my head. Every time I came to Olympus, it appeared that chariots grew in size and spouted fancier features. I unfettered my own two horses from my plain, double capacity ride. Excessive trimmings only add dead weight, requiring more horsepower. More horses meant more waste and grass consumption.

I strolled down one of the many ramparts of the palace and thought that the stony gray of the looming walls distracted from the beautiful green scenery. Although Olympus had undergone many renovations after the Titanomachy, Zeus did not wish to compromise its original function as a fortress. This meant doom for an aesthetics-discerning eye.

I let out an undignified yelp when a strong hand gripped my arm and pulled me into a deserted corner. I spun around to see a familiar face, only it was deathly white and filled with a mixture of anger and panic.

"Mother!" I cried. I held my aching forearm and looked at her with astonishment. I had never seen her so frenzied.

"I saw the research tablet you presented at the latest Conference of Environment Deities," she hissed. "As did the rest of Olympus."

I drew back. "You act as if I had written a proposal to overthrow Zeus."

Mother's eyes flashed in response. "That is essentially what you have done," she snapped in a loud whisper. "One would pause to think what atomos represents to Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus, to the existing order!"

I felt stung. It was understandable that the press would twist my words, colleagues would dismiss my findings until I found better evidence, but I thought at least my own mother, a fellow scholar of atomos, would give me some encouragement, even if it meant swallowing her pride. Instead, she was making up silly excuses for me to abandon my painstaking studies, research that had been inspired by her own obvious interest in the subject. I had hoped she would finally see me as an intellectual equal, not an embarrassing burden.

I wanted to yell and scream, but that was what children did. "I would think that you would value scientific progress above academic rivalry. How is an obsolete form of magic any threat to the three kings? I think you are the one who planted the insecurity in their heads. You do not want anyone to succeed where you had given up or discover something better than PanGaia!"

Her eyes widened and her jaw clenched. She opened her mouth and closed it again but no sound came out. Instead of waiting for her false denials, I stormed away, feeling somewhat betrayed.

My temper cooled when I saw my dear friend Prometheus, straining to drag his giant rock behind him. After he had served out his sentence of getting his liver pecked out each day, he was invited back to Olympus as long as he brought the boulder to which he was chained. I offered him the contraption that was tucked under my arm. It consisted of a wooden board with four small wheels attached on the bottom.

"It's called a skait board," I explained. "It's a Sumerian invention."

Inwardly, I sighed. Yet another culture had made a useful invention while Greeks had nothing to boast of except the PanGaia theory. I imagined my next encounter with a foreign god.

_Sumerian god: Ah, Kuh-ley. We just created the skait board, very popular item, it is. Have the Greeks invented anything new yet? I know your mother discovered the Common Creation Concept, but that was so very long ago! One would think that you would be the one to make your pantheon catch up with the rest of the world. (condescending chuckle)_

_Interpreter: I admire your mother for her discovery of the Common Creation Concept and am certain that you will be just as great. Do you have any new projects planned?_

_Me: (strained smile)_

As I helped Prometheus mount his boulder on the wheeled platform, I talked about the conference and the lack of enthusiasm for atomos.

"Perhaps this is just as well, Prometheus. Some day, Greek civilization will exceed that of any other. You gave the mortals fire, perhaps I shall give them atomos." How soon, I did not know.

Prometheus turned very grave and raised a manacled wrist. "Look at me child. You are still young. If you anger the rest of the pantheon, you may end up with a worse fate. They will not be happy with man possessing a magic that even Zeus cannot understand."

"And as of now, you alone know how to manipulate atomos," said a new voice.

"Athena," I muttered through grit teeth. Another dissuader. Just what I needed.

She patted the owl that was sitting on her shoulder. "You hold a tremendous power, be certain it does not corrupt you. At least with the elements, there are many who can control it."

I crossed my arms. "I think you are forgetting that even if anyone understood atomos enough to exploit it, there is only a limited supply. The study of atomos is mostly for historical insight, it serves little practical purpose."

"That is not what your research tablet said," Athena pointed out.

I wanted to shatter something. "Has my mother poisoned you all with unwarranted paranoia? The three kings have short attention spans; they will forget their woes when they preoccupy themselves with an unfortunate maiden. As for my mother, she is nothing but a bitter failure at both academia and scholarly pride. Is there anyone else who is so worried about atomos?"

Prometheus and Athena exchanged uneasy glances before cajoling me into joining the party downstairs.

As could only be expected, Dionysus was suavely pouring wine into everyone's goblet and instructing them to savor the "smooth, rich detail of the Babylonian ambrosia grape." He swirled his cup expertly. "Aged exactly one thousand two hundred years, it wafts a sweet aroma with subtle hints of blackberry and chocolate." He inhaled deeply to make his point. Everyone else imitated him in an effort to appear cultured.

Although I was making a point to not look in his direction, Hades caught my eye and gave me a look that could have frozen the fire in a satyr's loins.

I scowled. I did not know why he hated me so, I think it had to do with a nymph or something, it was such a long time ago.

I sneered at his gaudy robes of silvery blue and the strands of glittering jewels that covered him from throat to toe. Perhaps he was cold, or maybe he was trying to see how many layers he could wear before the weight sank him into the earth. He posed as people with no taste marveled over his ridiculous costume.

Hades was always overdressed like the god-king he was or underdressed like an expensive love-slave. Either way, he consistently fulfilled his reputation as the Rich One. However, I always thought of him as Zeus' decorated eunuch.

I was still contemplating whether to make a snide remark when he turned away as Aphrodite began to engage him in conversation. I felt sorry for the goddess of love, once Hades began talking, he never held his peace.

To add to my irritation, our guests seemed drawn to Zeus' every word. Ever an excellent host, he was engaging all the important nymphs and demi-gods in conversation. Even the centaurs chuckled appreciatively, although they tended to lack a sense of humor. He had a way of making people warm up to him, even though his poised smile never quite reached his cold, blue eyes. His eyes, my eyes. I had been told that I had his eyes, and this had been the catalyst for the termination of a most beloved friendship. I shook the thought away.

If Hera intimidated with her aloofness, Zeus did it with his debonair. However, I would never put anything past him. There was no point in refusing him, because he always won what he wanted, whether the giver was willing.

Zeus acknowledged me with a smile and a raised cup. I returned the gesture, playing the role of a dutiful daughter. The only thing I was glad to inherit from him was his pragmatic taste in attire. Although I knew that he normally wore simpler clothes, he was dressed up for the occasion. Even so, he looked like a pigeon standing next to his peacock of a wife.

Hera's splendor always rivals that of Hades, which was a rather remarkable feat. The queen of the gods was not one to be outdone by some cave-dwelling fop.

The cave-dwelling fop actually took the trouble of striding over to me. Hera glides, Hades stomps around everywhere as if he were squashing grapes for Dionysus. Hades' teeth were so clenched that I could barely make out his words. "You wrote a tablet about atomos?"

"Yes," I replied tersely. I generally tried not to waste any breath on him.

His bejeweled chest swelled. "Obviously, you do not think before you write."

Whatever that was supposed to mean.

"Obviously, you do not think before you speak." I turned on my heel and avoided him for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, he had his means of communicating with me even if not in person.

Hermes brought me a letter the very next day. I presumed it was from Hera, since it was inscribed on a sheet of gold. To my amusement, I noticed that his famous winged sandals were still bright red.

"Nice shoes!" I smiled. I stopped smiling abruptly when I opened the letter, which was, in fact, not from Hera.

Dearest Kore,

I understand that your immaturity, irrationality, and lack of ability to think drive you to the most imbecilic tactics, but please note that there are less destructive ways to show childish contempt for your father. Your grudge against one god need not undermine a delicate hierarchy that prevents anarchy and disorder. I sincerely hope that you will save me the trouble of reserving you the worst seat in Tartarus. I can only speak for myself, but I would greatly prefer it if you were nowhere near my kingdom or anywhere else I may be.

Lovingly,

Hades

I muttered and tossed the inscription aside. Foolish, egotistical Hades. He always had to be the center of the universe. Like my mother, he dreaded being outdone by anyone. If I were to present a breakthrough on atomos, I would become the icon of the Greek pantheon. He would forever be blotted out in obscurity, no matter how he dressed to make people gape in shock and awe.

I wrote back:

Dearest Hades,

I understand that your insecurity, ego, and fear of progress keep you from realizing that my academic pursuit is more than a means to agitate my father, but please try not to be blinder than a stereotypical prophet. If you were to love mortal beings as much as you loved power, then you would understand that I am only furthering their best interests at the minimal expense of our kind. I did not think you would reserve seats in Tartarus, since one is usually condemned after a fair and final judgment. I can only speak for myself, but I would greatly prefer it if your capacity for logic was anywhere near your kingdom or wherever else you may be.

Lovingly,

Kore

I opened the door to leave the letter out for Hermes but stopped short when I glimpsed a moving object in the sky. I watched with morbid fascination as an iridescent purple chariot headed straight towards my home. The giant peacocks strained against their reins as they flapped and bobbed fervently. Peacocks, honestly. Sometimes Hera was just a little too much for me.

The goddess landed her vehicle with incredible grace and breezed through the doorway in a flutter of jade green brocaded with pearlescent flowers. I grumpily followed her inside.

"What brings you to Enna?" I asked with feigned politeness. What was the point of living away from family if they kept showing up at your doorstep?

She did not bother to answer until she was comfortably seated. Then she carefully poured two drinks while holding her flared sleeve out of the way.

"Help yourself," I muttered under my breath. I didn't like sharing my good ambrosia. That stuff was expensive.

"You young ones think you are invincible," she said bitterly. "Your father did not swallow you as soon as you were born. You did not have to fight for survival the moment you were freed from your father's stomach. Castrating him was the only way to win our freedom, as he had castrated his own father before us."

One of the reasons I had moved away from Olympus was to avoid hearing history lessons from those who had lived through it.

"Within the pantheon, there are only six of us who remember the War Between the Gods. We the Third Generation, the Grandchildren of the Sky and Earth, we remember what you children have only read about, the glorified 'Titanomachy.'"

I did not think it was very accurate to call anyone the Third Generation, when there were obviously much older ancestors in other parts of the world, but I held my tongue.

"We have seen how easily kings come and go. To the Third Generation, which fears being toppled like the two generations before it, atomos represents a new and unwanted change. Atomos requires that we distance ourselves from our very source of power, the means by which we can cause darkness, plague, and flood to show our displeasure and demonstrate our might." She chuckled mirthlessly. "But I have none to lose. Neither do Demeter or Hestia, for that matter." She absentmindedly stroked the golden feathers that were always pinned to her bosom. The color matched that of Zeus' hair exactly.

I sat up straighter. "So why is my mother so afraid of atomos? It was once her greatest passion in life."

"That is her story, let her tell you herself." She leaned forward in a rustle of silk, her regal face filled with alarming intensity. "Know this, your mother has been wronged. The only way to exact justice is to see her dream of atomos through." She sighed. "Perhaps it would be wiser if you were to continue your atomos in secret. You are a product of my husband's infidelity and my sister's betrayal, but my blood runs in your veins as well, since I share a father and mother with your father and mother. I will not let Poseidon do to you what he has done to your mother or what Zeus has done to me."

I frowned. Was she making up vague hints to manipulate me into becoming her pawn? "How do you benefit from atomos?" I asked suspiciously.

She looked slightly defensive. "Queens fall with their kings, but I do not care as long it hurts Zeus at least as much as he has hurt me. If you should succeed, he will dangle me by my toes from the sky no longer, he will never again shun my bed for that of another."

"I sympathize with your plight, but you speak of treason," I replied coldly. "You have deluded yourself with the notion that atomos is a deliberate attempt to overthrow the existing order. This is not so. It would not even be possible."

"Whether it is so, the kings think so. That is all that matters."

"Atomos is not a political weapon. I will not be a party to your personal quarrels." I rose from my seat.

Hera stood as well. The golden feathers heaved on her bosom. "You must see for yourself," she said sharply. "Hades commands the waters that collect every memory, including the one your mother wishes she could abandon forever."

Without further ado she swept out, leaving me with nothing but doubt and the scent of lilies.

I was uncertain about the accuracy of her claims, but there was only one way to find out.

#


	3. Chapter 3

"I am Kore of the Fourth Generation, guardian of the harvest, Great Granddaughter of the Heavens and Earth. I bid you Gaia, to open at my command." I stomped my foot and the land split below me. I hopped into my chariot and flew right into the underworld.

Hades was not the only god who could part the earth with smoke and loud noises.

My horses had barely touched the banks of the Styx when the aforementioned god came storming over to greet me personally, generous host he was.

"What! Is! This!" he roared. The leg-length feathers that constituted his pathetic excuse for clothing quivered dangerously. For someone who was also known as the "Unseen One," he was providing much to see. The brown and black plumage adorned the headdress that was too big for his swelled head and the matching loincloth that was too small for his puny manhood. Thin chains of gold snaked around his limbs, neck, and chest. I could have easily mistaken him for a plucked bird in captivity.

A small, fluffy dog with three heads and a dragon's tail pranced around its master's heels and yapped away. I rubbed my ears. Such dogs were bad enough with just one head. I preferred pigs, myself. I found them more intelligent than some gods with whom I was on very good terms. Not to mention politer.

"I didn't come inquire about your health, so I'll be on my way." I began to walk towards Charon's boat, ignoring the growling dog and the fuming god. Fur and feathers, they weren't a bad match. And then, the little beast sank its teeth into my ankle! I screamed and kicked it off.

"Good boy, Cerberus," the big beast laughed. "Such a good guard dog, yes you are." He reached back and pulled out a treat from—I averted my eyes just in time.

Muttering darkly, I limped away while present company was still preoccupied.

"Wait!" Hades said angrily. "I forbid you to go any further-"

Without even looking back, I raised a hand and made vines burst from the earth and wrap themselves around the shocked god. It was very rude to use magic against another immortal, but I did not care. It would take him a while to get out of the bind, I doubted he knew how to handle plants. His expertise was in dead people, which explained his constant crankiness.

"Do not let her pass!" he howled. Charon took one look at his master, then the handful of coins in my hand, and let me in his boat. As we rowed away, I made an insulting gesture at the barking monster dog and the pathetic king of the underworld. Mother would have been appalled to see her darling Ko-ko act in such a manner.

#

As I rushed to the Pool of Memory, I had to zigzag around the many pots of molten bronze that were sitting on the ground. In the farthest corner of the underworld, I could make out the top of a sun. It cast a dim light across the Meadows and made the rock ceiling as red as the twilight. The palace was just a dark shape in the distance.

I recognized my destination by all the nymphs that were drinking from it. There was also a sign that read "Mnemosyne, Pool of Memory. NOT Lethe, Pool of Forgetfulness!"

I conjured a fishing pole, pricked my finger on the hook, and cast the line into the waters. I waited patiently until I felt an unmistakable tug. When I wound in the line, a silver fish was thrashing on the end. I removed the hook and held the fish up to my face.

"Put me back in the water!" it gasped.

"Only if you will show me my mother's memories. The ones that involve Poseidon, and her reason for giving up her atomos research."

"Fine," came the sullen reply.

I lowered the fish back into the pool but gripped its tail so it could not escape. The creature turned on its side and I leaned closer.

"For the best results, you'll want to stick head underwater. Otherwise you won't get the audio," the fish told me.

Indeed, I could hear tiny, unintelligible noises emanating from its fins, but I did not want to get wet. I settled for watching the small but clear pictures that appeared on the surface of the fish's mirror-like scales.

First, there was a herd of horses in a green pasture that I knew I must have seen many times before. They were all fairly ordinary, except for one mare that stood out from the rest because her mane shined like dull gold. When a fine stallion trotted into view, she neighed and began to race away. The stallion chased after her, apparently determined to mate. I admired the pair for their flying tails, smooth muscles, and gleaming coats that would have made them desirable at the front of any chariot. The stallion finally managed to find fruit in his pursuit, although the mare reared and bucked with agitation.

Then the vision suddenly vanished and the fish's scales were plain silver once more.

"You silly fool!" I cried. "I wanted you to show you me my mother!"

The fish tried to wrench away but I held fast on its tail. "The mare was your mother!" it squeaked. "The stallion was Poseidon!"

I fell into the water.

The weight of my robes dragged me deeper into the pool, in which there were hundreds of other mirror-like fish like the one I had caught. As they swam around me, I could see many different scenes flashing on their scales, presumably all the memories that ever existed in the world. I was not accustomed to breathing water, it was a refreshing sensation.

I felt a nibble on my ankle and saw that a fish was sucking at the drops of ichor that oozed from the spot where Cerberus had bitten me. Several other fish began to swarm around my ankle as well, and it began to bleed more than ever.

I stared, fascinated and mortified, as the scales of all the fish that drank my blood shimmered around me, providing many visions at once, most of them from my childhood. There was me trying to find a golden bracelet that had been "borrowed" by Hermes, me meeting Zeus for the first time, a group of Oceanids teaching me how to say bad words in foreign languages…

I gasped when I saw the all too familiar image of a weeping nymph. Her name was **Io**. "You have his eyes," she told a younger version of me. "I can no longer look at you. You have the eyes of the god who has violated me. When I see you, I see him."

I turned my head away so I would not have to watch my childhood self trying to burn out my eyes so **Io** would be my friend again.

"No," I insisted. "Show me the rest of my mother's distressing tale."

The fish obliged. Mother was back in human form, mustering what dignity she had left. She could find no sympathizers, however. Aphrodite simply could not understand why she had have chosen to lie with Poseidon in the first place. Athena had successfully fought of Hephaestus' unwanted advances and thought Mother could have easily done the same. Hera was still angry at my mother for having lain willingly with Zeus.

"But," Mother wept to Cyane, one of her favorite nymph attendants. "When Hera was taken by Zeus, she became the queen of the gods, even though she is only a queen in name. I wish I had been Poseidon's first conquest, but I am nothing."

Mother retreated into a cave and wore only black. She let the crops die and entrusted my care in the hands of the Oceanids. I had been a small child then, and preoccupied only with my immediate surroundings.

To my great surprise and mild annoyance, it was Hades who finally offered my mother comfort and suggested that she wash away her anger in the Laidon River. He even gave her his seat on Olympus so she could forever goad Poseidon with her defiant presence.

I watched, repulsed, as my mother buried her face into Hades' shoulder. "The Laidon washed away my anger, but not my sorrow and humiliation," she sobbed.

"Why would Hades help her?" I blurted.

A new vision materialized. Hades, Mother, Hestia, and Hera were completely naked and huddled inside a wet, reddish sack. I deduced that they must be inside of my grandfather Cronus' stomach. Imprisoned together for many years, they bickered and fought but also developed a special bond that they would not share with any of their other siblings. When Poseidon was born, his mother Rhea claimed that she had given birth to a foal, which Cronus swallowed instead of the actual infant. When Zeus came into being, his mother tricked her husband into accepting a rock swaddled in blankets.

With more images, the fish illustrated how Zeus and Poseidon were always suspicious and jealous of the attachment between their older siblings.

The scene switched to that of Hera confronting my mother in a room that looked like it belonged on Olympus. "Is it true?" Hera demanded. "Is it true that you are carrying the child of my husband?"

Mother blanched and denied it, but Hera assured her that she bore no grudge, they were sisters.

Mother looked relieved. "Forgive me." She fell to her knees held out her arms in supplication. "Forgive me, dear Sister, his charm was too great, I could not resist him…"

Hera recoiled. "His charm?" she whispered incredulously. "I had no reason to believe that he had used anything more than his strength against you. I never thought that my own sister... After all that we have been through…"

Mother's lips formed an "o" as she realized that she had spoken rashly. "You do not even love him!" she cried. "You wear those feathers on your bosom, to show that you struggled against him, to prove how much you hate him..."

I thought about what this meant. I knew that Zeus had taken the form of a beautiful bird to entice and capture Hera when she had resisted his prior advances. She must have pulled out those feathers in her fight to throw him off.

Unknown to either of them, Zeus was listening behind the door with an expression of grim satisfaction. It was fairly obvious that he had deliberately seduced my mother to drive a rift between her and Hera.

The fish became blurry again and showed Hades sitting on his throne. He appeared to be presiding over a judgment. I knew that Rhatha, a and Minos always confided in him before laying down the ultimate decision.

His voice echoed in the water as the image warped once again to that of him speaking to my mother. "I have been entrusted with an eye opening task," he said dully. "I see what no one else sees. Upon death, all souls come to me. When I oversee their final judgment, I see all that they have done, have felt. There is no rage like that of a father who never had the chance to give his daughter away. There is incomparable pain to that of a maiden's distress when she is bound to the man who has violated her. I see the suffering of all, I understand humans in a way that no one else probably never shall." 

"And so you choose to not add to this suffering. You are no longer a mystery to me." Mother looked at him with sparkling eyes.

Her girly vulnerability made me want to gag.

"You need someone to confide in. Someone who can understand what you go through. Someone to share your burden, you need a special companion," she insisted.

Mother was in love with him! However, Hades refused to take her bait. Her conniving thoughts were as clear to me as if she were speaking them aloud. If I cannot have him, then my daughter shall, she told herself.

I shuddered.

He clearly wants a maiden unsoiled. She brought a hand to her stomach, which was already bulging with a brother or sister I had never met.

That explained why she had named me "Kore." It meant, "The Maiden." I decided that if I ever had children, I would be more creative in naming them. It would probably be easier to just keep using birth control, not that I had needed it for the past fifty years.  
"What happened to the child?" I asked nervously. "The one born of Poseidon's rage and my mother's defiance?"

A talking horse appeared. Oh, he was so beautiful! Mother brought him carrots, sugar, and nuzzled his nose. I raised a hand as if I could touch him too, but I only felt the slimy skin of a blood sucking fish.

I wanted to see more of him, but was interrupted by a Nereid. I was so engrossed in the memories that I had failed to notice that I was at the floor of the pool. Although my heels and arms were bobbing up and down, the nymph seemed comfortably grounded as if she was above water. I recognized her as Mnemosyne, the guardian of the body of water that was named for her.

"Sorry, the master sent me down here to get you," she said. "There are things he doesn't want you to see, and if you keep feeding the fish, they'll suck you dry."

I snatched my foot away, but the creatures kept drinking greedily. I swam to the surface, with an entourage of glinting fish and a nymph.

When I broke the surface, I heavily pulled myself out of the water. Mneomsyne moved as if she were perfectly dry, she did not seem bothered by the weight of her own soaking robes. Hades was waiting at the bank, glowering at me. If his fury could have emanated as heat, he would have evaporated the entire pool. I walked straight past him and avoided his eyes.

#

I wanted to rush to Olympus immediately, but my unexpected presence would undoubtedly call attention to my conspiring with Hera. Neither of us was known for traveling great distances just to converse about frivolities, so I waited till the next ceremonial matter to speak with her. When I requested a private audience, she led me into one of the hidden side rooms. An enchanted mirror hung on the wall. Instead of my reflection, it showed the affairs of the main chamber as if it were a window. During the Civil War, these spaces had been used to secretly spy on interrogations or a prisoners.

"I have followed your advice, I have seen all," I blurted. "My mother's plight does indeed require a remedy, but you are too obsessed with punishing the victims of your husband's unwanted affections."

Hera permitted herself a tinkling laugh. "Do you expect me to direct my anger at Zeus himself? My husband? The king of the gods? When you are also a wife, you will find that the only way to inhibit your husband's transgressions is to punish his accomplices. I am the goddess of marriage, I must protect it somehow."

I questioned the matter no more. Besides, there were other important issues that demanded my attention.

It was my greatest desire to inflict immediate and immense physical pain upon Poseidon, but my justice would have to be more pervasive and effective. He was a powerful king, I was just one of Zeus' many daughters. I was easily replaceable. Atomos had been my mother's downfall, it would also have to be the means of her vengeance. My strength was Poseidon's greatest fear and ignorance, atomos.

#

"Ever since I spilled Rouge Bovigne on my sandals, the mortals can't stop staring at them," Hermes told me. He imitated their primitive speech. "Nice shooze! Ah lahk doze red winged shooze! What's up with doze red winged shooze!"

I laughed and shook my head as I flipped through my pile of mail, hoping for something more interesting than a request for donations or coupons for chariot maintenance. Finally, I found a papyrus scroll that looked very official. It read:

Dear Friend,

You are hereby invited to the Conference on the Implementation of the Treaty of Ndkuyleial to meet with your Roman counterparts, who have laid claim on Greece as well as a political boundary that the diviners call "Rome." Attendance is mandatory. Please report to Mt. Doycial no later than 4937, Mesopotamian Standard Time. A map and directions can be found on the attached scroll. We look forward to seeing you there. 

What on Gaia was the treaty of N-whatever? Zeus signed so many, pretentious thing he was. I went to the Olympian library to look it up but the tablet was checked out. Fortunately, I spied a group of five other gods clutching similar invitations and huddled over a tablet. I leaned across the table and read the article upside down.

Treaty of Ndkuyleial (pronounced nuh dek AY ell)

During the earlier times when the world was younger, there was ample space and resources for each pantheon to create its own population of human worshippers. However, the humans bred and exploited the earth at an unanticipated pace. The competition over resources and the sheer size of the human populations led to quarrel. Whenever humans of different group identities fought amongst themselves, their divine guardians also became insulted on their behalf, leading to a vicious cycle of divine and mortal conflict. It was soon decided that no god would be permitted to fashion any new humans from raw materials. However, this led to the issue of who would worship the newer pantheons that were bound to come into existence after the enactment of this treaty.  


To prevent conflict and violent quarrel, all the gods of the civilized world agreed to divide the mortal populations into geopolitical units and take turns at governing them. It was at this conference that the present pantheons established a standard timeline which would be used to determine the time slots for various jurisdictions. The most comprehensive agreement is the one pertaining to the Spoiled Banana.1**The Sumerian pantheon is currently governing the mortals, then they will peacefully hand over power to the Babylonian gods. The Assyrians, Hittites, and Zoraster will follow respectively.** In the case of Greece, the Olympians ousted their predecessors, the Titans, in a bloody civil war. To this day, the Olympians enjoy exclusive control over Greece.

The next tablet had a color coded map of the world that showed the spheres of influence and the dates of when each new pantheon would assume power.

#

Zeus and Jupiter, the king of the self proclaimed "Roman" gods, bowed and smiled for the artists who painted their portraits. Today was a significant historical event, proof that the Greek gods were willing to cooperate with the rest of the world instead of fighting to defend its monopoly on worshippers. The global press was going crazy over it.

"In a surprising show of diplomacy, Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, agreed to eventually assimilate duties with the Roman gods and split the sacrifices evenly once the entity of 'Rome' comes into being," dictated one reporter. Her scribe scratched away at a clay tablet.

Hades, the pompous fool, was more than happy to provide an interview. "You see, everyone assumed that we Greeks were violent and unwilling to share power because we overthrow the Titans. This is untrue. We fought a civil war against the Titans because they were unwilling to coexist with us. The Olympians prefer diplomacy."

Ares looked like he disagreed, but was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He shared a meaningful look with his Roman match, Mars. I supposed the two war gods would have preferred to let the winner take all.

I watched disapprovingly as Mother conversed with her new partner Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain. I thought the agreement was well meant, but difficult to execute. The arrangement completely undermined mortal agency and dictated a very large aspects of their lives. As of now, Greek humans were still primitive and could not think for themselves, but surely that would change soon. The successful transition to a joint rule with the Romans depended on the stunted evolution of human beings.

I pulled Athena aside and voiced my concerns on this matter, but she only chastised me.

"This is why you must not allow the mortals to have atomos," she whispered. Her eyes darted nervously from side to side. "If divine authority is diminished, the mortals will not transition to the new gods as planned."

"Even without atomos, mortals will develop cognitively and make decisions for themselves. It is an inevitable process," I argued.

"This treaty is meant to prevent a world war, you must not do anything that could upset the balance of power," she hissed.

"This agreement is pointless!" I lowered my voice when she hastily shushed me. "As long as there is an underprivileged mass to fight and an ambitious elite to send them fighting, there will always be war. If the mortals choose of their own accord to worship a different pantheon, why can't we just accept it peacefully?"

Athena simply refused to see my point. She may have been the goddess of wisdom, but she was ever her father's daughter.

#

To Kore, friend, thinker, and dreamer,

As long as you shall seriously pursue the magic of atomos, I bid you to wear this ring, which bears a stone fashioned from the rock to which I shall be chained for all eternity. It will serve as a reminder of what fate you may suffer should you continue your noble task. If it is your desire to enlighten the mortals, you must know that it may come at great cost, and you may not necessarily succeed. If this ring represents Zeus' anger when I gave fire to humans, my own boulder will be comparable to his wrath should you give them atomos.

With the utmost sincerity and concern,

Prometheus

I unwrapped the enclosed velvet bundle and a ring fell out onto my palm. It consisted of an iron circle with a polished gray rock welded on the outer ring. I slipped it on and shivered when I realized how cold and heavy it was. It was my own miniature manacle, symbolic of Prometheus' burden. I did not like the way it felt against my skin, but I would wear it as a reminder. Atomos was a serious issue, whether I liked it or not.

#

"Humans are my children," he sighed. "I wanted them to be more like their creator. If only I could have made them long lived, perhaps they would have had more regard for the gifts we give them."

I nervously twisted the iron ring on my finger. "Do you ever have any regrets?" I asked. "Was there ever a time when you wished you had not given the humans fire?"

I'm scared, I admitted.

But she knows that once she succedds completely, no god can take the gift back.

If you are going to do something, must do it for selflessness, not glory. Glory will not lessen your pain when an eagle is pecking out your ilver. But generousity will.

"But how do I know I do not have ulterior motives. Who does not wish for fame and glory?"

"It would have been easier for you to invent a new crop."

Prometheus absentmindedly stroked the terrible scar on his side. It was raised and bumpy, the only mar on otherwise perfect flesh. I hated to look at it, but it was revoltingly fascinating. "It is not the most enjoyable pastime to have an eagle peck out your liver," he admitted. "But it is a small price to pay for the welfare of humankind." He leaned his head against his boulder and sighed.

"Do you think atomos would promote human welfare?"

"If humans do not abuse it."

"How can I ensure that they won't?"

"You can't."

#

The dig site at the Indus Valley was deserted, for it was pouring rain. Nonetheless, I toiled in the mud, looking for any artifacts that would shed more light on the role of atomos in Indus society. Yu Hwang Da Di held a gigantic umbrella over my head as I worked. I kept telling him to go back to his inn, but he insisted on staying.

"You Greeks are spoiled with sunny weather and clear skies," he scolded. "You are not physically eligible to withstand this terrible rain."

As usual, my ever present companion, the security guard, was standing in a distance, staring at me as if I was about to steal a juicy earthworm. I wanted to do something to ruffle his feathers, but I figured he was already as peeved as only a wet bird could be.

"The inns here are so stupid!" Yu complained. "They all have beds that are elevated from the floor! They are narrow too. Last night, when I was having sex, I fell off and hit my head! Next time I am pushing two beds together."

"I have never fallen off the bed during copulation," I remarked.

"That is because you never move."

This was true. Also, I had had very few opportunities to fall off in such a manner. I often longed to have the curly brown hair of Apollo, or the lovely gray eyes of Athena. Straight blond hair and blue eyes were considered boring, characteristic of most members of the Greek pantheon.

"Your looks are fine," Yu remarked, as if reading my thoughts. "No matter how beautiful you are, no one will bed you if you tell them you want to rub them over with sweet and sour sauce."

I sighed. At the tender, inexperienced age of 400, I had misinterpreted Aphrodite's advice on erotic foods. At the time, I had not seen much of a difference between "sweet" and "sweet and sour." "I was inebriated when I uttered those words," I lied.

"Were you also inebriated when you said you wanted to spread your disease?"

I had initially wanted to say legs, not disease, but had felt that the former would come off as unattractively aggressive. Ironically enough, I was now in very little danger of catching any form of venereal infection. It was no wonder I had so much time to focus on research. If I were to ever reclaim my status as a maiden, I would hardly have anything to reclaim.

#

300 celibate years later…

I marked the final sheet of my notes with an "861,945" in the corner. Page 861,945 contained the hypothetical means of performing a feat that I still could not accomplish. Across the top I had carefully printed, "On How to Divide the Indivisible."

(chapter break)

As an earthen goddess, I felt that I had natural allies in the nymphs, the long lived friends of the gods and often the victims of their undesired affections. I also summoned the rest of Gaia's deities, for I thought they may lend me a sympathetic ear.

"My knowledge on atomos is mostly theoretical," I admitted. "Atomos is actually resistant to any divine manipulation. However, it is not an impossible task to command the atomos as one would command the elements." To demonstrate, I raised my palms and conjured handfuls of 11-3alpha and 17-3alpha each. When I put my hands together, white grains fell from between them.

Everyone eyed the pile of salt that was now lying on the grass.

"Is this all that you can create with atomos?" the Northern Wind asked. "A white crystal that tastes funny?"

"If I am to ever phase out the elements with atomos, I need more hands and minds to help me do so," I argued. "One day, we could be living in a world built upon a self governing alternative to the elements. Atomos are more stable, they can never be neglected, they are simply more practical-."

"We are not gods, but humble stewards of the earth. We have no control over the elements, much less this atomos," a nymph pointed out. "You expect us to throw our collective efforts into an unproven magic from which we may never benefit."

The skepticism spread faster than gossip. The nature deities slowly left me, all but my own Oceanid attendants. However, even their faces reflected doubt and suspicion. I could rely on them to dress me, to prepare my food, but not to further my science without a reluctant heart.

Dejected, I ran my hand through the mound of salt and watched the white crystals mingle with the brown dirt. I stared at this in deep contemplation. Salt had somehow depleted the soil of the Indus Valley. It had also polluted its sea. And now, I was the only being in existence that could make this new substance bend to my whim. It may not have been enough for the nature deities, but it was sufficient to serve my own purpose. Three hundred years of painstaking research had not gone to waste after all. When I tapped the earth with a finger, each grain of salt vanished.

I turned to one of my Oceanids. "Tell Poseidon that I seek an exclusive word with him."

#

The god of the sea looked at me quizzically, as if wondering what a silly girl like me could want with a great king like himself. How arrogant he was. With much effort, I kept my calm. I had often found that quiet words reached the ear better than loud accusations. And so, I spoke in a low voice. "Sir, you once violated my mother in the most unspeakable manner. It burns my tongue to mention it."

He narrowed his eyes. "You think I am cruel, filled with uncontrollable lust. This is not so. I did not do it out of lust, or anger. Nor did I do it just because I could, or because I wanted to. I did what I had to do. Without a fear of gods, there is anarchy. " He showed no remorse, no guilt. It infuriated me. How dare he claim righteousness!

"Anarchy is preferable to tyranny." I replied coldly.

His face darkened. "Is that what you call it? You know nothing of tyranny and oppression. How innocent you are. You are so naïve, like a child."

"If I am naïve, you care only for your own power. You know as well as I do that the mortals do not need gods meddling in their everyday affairs."

"Think about your mother. I could not take her life, so I took her livelihood instead. Never since has she slept a peaceful night. I can do the same to you."

"Yes, you could," I admitted. "But if all the mortals were to die from a barren earth, there would be no one to give you sacrifice."

His laugh gave me the chills. "You think I'm a monster don't you. Know this, I do not inflict harm just for its sake. When I was born, my mother gave my father a foal to swallow in my stead. I felt guilt that I had been spared while my older brother and sisters had not. Then we fought a bloody war for ten years to avoid imprisonment. I vowed that we would never be subjugated again, we would be so mighty that we would never again have to fight a war to defend our right to exist. A world of atomos opens up possibilities for other gods to take control, for mortals to break away from us. I will not let this happen."

"You fear more for your power than your freedom. Your concerns are unwarranted, your crime is unforgivable."

His eyes glittered. "I am Poseidon of the Third Generation, Grandson of the Heaven and Earth. What powers do you have against me?"

I took a deep breath. It was thrilling to finally exact justice upon the god who had brought my mother grief. "For every tear my mother has shed because of you, I shall cast a grain of salt into your sea. May you forever know thirst in your own kingdom."

Poseidon laughed incredulously. "I shall simply rid the sea of this salt by casting it out to shore."

"Then your sea shall forever wash to shore." I turned and left, leaving him staring after me with murder in his eyes.

I knew I would pay for my hubris, but I was my mother's daughter, and I could not allow her plight to go ignored. How dearly I would pay, I could have never imagined.

1 Also known as the Fertile Crescent, to you mortals.


	4. Chapter 4

Hermes stared at his feet as he handed me a summons to Olympus. Even the leather wings on his footwear were drooping.

"This isn't an ordinary summons, is it? This is as good as a warrant for my arrest."

He met my gaze. "Will you flee?" I knew he would not stop me if I were to do so.

"I will go with dignity."

As if on cue, Athena burst through the doors. "But you cannot go like that!" she panted. "You look like a criminal!"

I glanced at my unkempt robes and ordered my attendants to bring me a change of clothes.

Athena waved aside the plain linen chitons I usually favored and opted for something more form fitting with flowing layers. "White," she instructed. "She must appear to be an innocent maiden who has been wrongfully accused."

"That is what I am," I muttered.

I reached for my favorite diadem, which featured dangling diamonds and platinum spirals. When I caught Athena's eye, I sighed and chose a simple gold band instead. I even draped a sheer veil over my hair to follow the current fashion for divine ladies.

"You look lovely," Hermes said awkwardly.

Athena inspected me critically. "You look like the last person to commit treason. I must go now, or I will be missed."

When Hermes and I arrived at Olympus, he led me to the Chamber of Three Thrones, where Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon presided over important matters. I thought it was rather fitting that it was called the "Three Thrones," as if Hera and Amphitrite were not queens in their own right.

While Zeus seemed distinctly uncomfortable, Poseidon had a self pleased smirk on his face. So this was his revenge for my tainting his beloved kingdom.

Most of the pantheon was waiting for us. Mother looked awful, as if she had not slept in weeks. She must have known about the arrest beforehand. Her protest died on her lips when Poseidon gave her a meaningful look. Every nymph, satyr, centaur, river god, and minor deity that must have ever graced the earth was present on Olympus, craning their necks to witness a rare event.

I raised my voice to be heard over the whispers. "I am Kore of the Fourth Generation, Great Granddaughter of the Heavens and Earth. I am here because of a summons."

Hera's face was haughty and blank as always, but the way in which she clutched at the golden feathers on her bosom revealed her true feelings.

Amphrithite seemed more peeved. The salt had affected her kingdom as well, but nymphs are quick to adapt.

Zeus closed his eyes wearily. "Recant your heresy, and all will be forgiven," he offered. "Deny the existence of atomos, and accept the sole truth of the elements."

I stared at the stone ring on my hand, then at Prometheus, who was standing amongst the crowd of earth creatures. My heart wrenched at the sight of my mother's hopeful face. It would be so easy to present a facade of submission. But what of the humans who believed in me? I could not abandon them at the first tribulation.

"I have committed no heresy," I said quietly.

My audience burst into an outcry but Zeus' face was unreadable. Poseidon smiled maliciously.  
"Treason!" someone spat. "Treason!"

Hades knocked his goblet off the tray. "You silly girl!" he shouted. "Do you not see? Without the elements, we would lose our power, our entire civilization would perish like that of the Indus Valley! For the sake of personal fame, you would destroy the last rays of hope for mankind."

"I do not profess to be a ray of hope," I replied stonily. "But you are most certainly the darkness."

The king of the gods rose from his throne and walked up to me. He held my chin as he scrutinized my face. There had been a time when I would have been delighted at this attention. I had once wanted nothing more than for my own father to take the slightest interest in my affairs. However, he was forever a stranger to me after his unforgivable crime.

"You have my eyes," he said finally, as if it were the first time he had noticed.

I jerked my head away. "I wish I did not."

He leaned closer and whispered into my ear. "I am your father. I can easily make this all go away."

It was so tempting. What was left but my pride? That, and the mortals. "No," I whispered back. "Demeter is my father and mother."

Zeus threw his head back and laughed. "I did not think you would dare return to Olympus. Strangely enough, this is the proudest moment of my life. My own flesh and blood, defying me. Citing my own principles." He returned to his seat and waved his hand.

Hephaestus lumbered forward with a pair of spiraling golden manacles. My hands shook so badly that he had to grip my arm to hold me still. As he clapped them on my wrist, I felt the strongest and most useful of my powers drain from me. I watched the god as he locked my restraints. Poor, plain Hephaestus, he made lovely metalwork to make up for his ugliness. Among the mortals, he would have been somewhat handsome, but on Olympus, he was a brown weed.

I held my shackled wrists to the light. "They are beautiful," I told him.

He looked at me, startled, and kissed my hand. "I am seldom appreciated," he murmured. "I will remember your kindness."

"Have her stripped of all signs of status," Hades snapped. "I will not take a decorated prisoner." He held his arm out at me and turned to the crowd. "Behold Kore, she has been judged a traitor!"

Most of those assembled responded with either exuberant cheers or half hearted protests.

"History will be my ultimate judge!" I cried.

"History will not remember you," snarled Poseidon. I sucked in my breath. I feared that this may be true.

At the king's prompt, Hermes chokingly began to read off of a tablet. "_By the divine decree of Zeus_," he started. "_All mention of the heretic Kore is hereby banned…"_

My loyal attendants dabbed at their tears as they reluctantly lifted the diadem off of my head. My veil was the next to be removed.

"_All likenesses of her being are to be destroyed_…"

When my Oceanid pulled the golden ring off of my right hand. I almost wished she would take the iron band as well, it felt unusually tight.

"_All praises to her shall be silenced_…"

The nymph who knelt before me hastily kissed my foot as she pulled off my sandal. Her unspoken grief was sadder than a siren's song.

"_Any violation of this shall be heresy of the highest order_."

"That, too." Hades made a sharp gesture at my purple girdle. Everyone froze. Someone's cup clattered to the floor. By denying me the right to wear purple, Hades was disowning me as a goddess as well as a member of the family. Poseidon looked simply delighted. Apparently things were going even better than he had planned.

"I am a goddess by right of birth, you can never take them from me." I struggled to keep my voice from shaking.

Hades scowled more deeply. "Since she has forsaken the gods, she will not touch the sacred color reserved for the gods." I raised my chin a little higher when my soon to be jailor yanked off my girdle and tossed it to the ground. With a wail of dismay, Cyane, a dearest friend of mine and my mother, fell to her knees and collected the garment. She wept like a spring as she pressed it over my mother's trembling hands.

To replace my diadem of gold, Mother came forward and placed a crown of pomegranate blossoms in my hair. "You are truly my daughter," she whispered. "I have no regrets about atomos."

I smiled for the first time since I had arrived on Olympus.

I gave Hades no struggle, I climbed into his chariot with dry eyes and a jaunty step. For a fleeting moment, I thought the journey to the underworld resembled a perversion of human style matrimony. I was in white, heading to a prison where Hades would be my ultimate master, and flowers were thrown at my feet by my feminine supporters.

#

Hades guided his chariot straight into a stable, a part of the underworld I had not seen before.

When we walked outside, I gaped in horror. What an eyesore! His palace was a clearly botched attempt at multiculturalism. Red pagodas abruptly became white marble pillars, which in turn stood next to towers with onion shaped domes. Ferocious creatures snarled from golden walls, pointy spirals jabbed at the sky, and vast brick arches stretched across random corners. I thought I even saw the top of a pyramid. It was as if architects from very distinct parts of the world had each claimed a piece of the palace and started building without collaborating with anyone else. The entire structure was clashing and hectic.

Various signs read "Please pardon our dust while we remodel," or "Caution, construction zone," with arrows pointing up. I hardly felt like I was underground, rather, at the gaping mouth of a vast cave. Half of the ceiling was normal blue sky and the other half was like the top of a cavern, complete with stalactites and stalagmites. People on very high ladders were painting the rock canopy with bronze to imitate the celestial dome of the upperworld. I could see at least three suns hovering in random spots in the sky. So this was where Apollo kept his spare chariots.

Cerberus, the little monster, came running up to Hades, wagging his dragon tail. One of his heads growled in my direction while the other two panted at Hades adoringly. Meanwhile, the people of the Meadows stared curiously, I supposed it wasn't often that their king personally escorted anyone to the underworld.

"This is- the new gardener," he explained.

I bristled. Taking care of the harvest is much more complicated than- gardening.

To my relief, a servant showed me to a rather garish but very comfortable room in the palace. I presumed Mother's intervention was the only thing that had kept Hades from throwing me in Tartarus as he had promised he would.

The spirit, which was as solid and healthy looking as I, hovered (not literally) at the doorway. He cleared his throat. "The master ordered me to tell you- this is the room that is the farthest from him and he sincerely hopes to never see any hint of you."

"If he doesn't need me, no point in staying," I replied cheerfully.

Of course, I found that all the exits were sealed to me. I sighed. It was worth a try.

I tried to conjure something, anything, but my palms only glowed momentarily before making a pathetic fizzing noise. On my second attempt, I managed to create nothing but a single leaf. I tossed it aside with disgust. It would be little defense against Hades' many guards.

I did not know why he had so many soldiers. Who would want to invade his kingdom? Doing so would require tolerating his obnoxious company, and he could not be killed.

His sentries eyed my every move and made me feel self conscious about the blossoms that still adorned my head. When I returned to my chambers, I placed the circle of flowers into a basin of cold water to extend their liveliness. I wanted to hold on to Mother's gift for as long as possible. I figured the blooms would live for a few weeks at the most, the buds would go longer.

#

During my first meal in the underworld, I found myself sitting across from Hades, which was highly unexpected. I suspiciously eyed the roast meats dripping with sauce and fat, the fresh greens piled high on cold plates, the fluffy sweets, and the sparkling glasses of wine. I was certain that he had a motive for joining me for supper; he would delight in watching me suffer the effects of his tainted sustenance. I longingly watched everyone else as they reached for platters filled with breads, cheeses, and all sorts of colorful delicacies that I had never even seen before. Many of the dishes were Greek, but I could not identify some of the tempting cuisines.

My stomach grumbled insistently when my eyes fell on a leg of lamb. It smelled wonderful. Since all the food was served on common platters, I reasoned that my ostentatious host could not have done anything to it without poisoning the rest of his guests. I filled my plate with moderate portions with a little of everything and cautiously took a bite of the lamb.

Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. The tender flesh did not fill my mouth, the smoked flavor never reached my tongue, I felt no warmth although the rest of the cut was steaming on my plate. I tried some grapes, sipped the wine, bit off a chunk of olive, but everything disappeared the minute it passed my lips!

"Is it not to your liking?" Hades asked innocently. "You have stopped eating."

"I am full already," I choked. May you crawl up a mule's anus, I thought. I would not give him the satisfaction of begging, screaming, or crying. I excused myself and walked away with as much dignity as I could muster.

I stopped bothering to show up for meals because every morsel I attempted to eat always turned intangible for me. However, this did not seem to happen to anyone else. When my mother came to visit, she seemed quite pleased with my accommodations, my relative freedom, and even complimented the grand banquet that was provided. I made no complaint about my own ghost food, she would only get upset and curse the earth or something. I feigned satisfaction for everyone's sake.

Besides, this was a matter between Hades and me. I would resolve it my own way. Every night, I called upon the Muses to give me inspiration for the most fitting revenge. The usual curses of shriveling testicles, rape by dogs, and shredding skin were too good for him.

Before she left, Mother spoke to me in private. "I know that this is a rather peculiar arrangement, but you will be safe here. No one will ever be able to hurt you." Except Hades himself, of course.

"How can anyone hurt me? I'm immortal."

"That is precisely what I'm worried about."

#

I was starving. If I could not escape, I would have to gain my jailor's trust and establish rapport.

I wandered through the section of the palace where the servants told me I would be most likely to find their master. All the windows were adorned with jagged little leaves that released a cool, refreshing scent that was hauntingly familiar. I found my captor in a massive library where scribes were poring over tablets in all different languages. I slid closer to him in what I hoped seemed like a friendly gesture.

He did not look up from his work. "It is she who destroys the light, although she deludes herself to be the beacon of hope for mankind."

I pretended to not hear the insult. "Hades," I forced a smile. "Why do you hate me so? Must we always be on bad terms?"

He bristled. "Do you not remember? A long time ago, you turned a dearest lover of mine into a plant!" He shook a sprig of green leaves in my face. "Menthe!" he shouted. "You did this to my Menthe!"

Oh. That. It all came back to me. The nymph had annoyed and teased me, something about my messy hair. If I had known Hades was so fond of her, I would have been more discreet when transforming her.

I spoke rashly before I could stop myself, it was a habit. "It never occurred to me that you had lovers. How much did you have to pay them?"

He did not say much to me for the rest of the night. Mostly he just glared. I skipped dinner once again, I did not think it would be worth a try.

If I could not soften him up, perhaps I could go for his pride. "You are a great king, you command the largest army in Greece, or under it, rather. Why do you care if the world must be built off of the elements or atomos?"

Hades held his arms out as a pair of spirits washed him in front of a gawking audience. Even the little monster dog yipped and splashed around in a tub of his own as another set of attendants tried to scrub his fur. Apparently it was a privilege to be invited to witness the king's weekly bath. I had been told that the highest honor was being permitted to disrobe him as he retired for the evening.

"You don't know what it was like, Kore," he replied. He almost sounded friendly. "Atomos may be unusable for the time being, but the elements have always been closely tied to divine authority. The veterans of the Titanomachy will always dislike any change in that status quo, as irrational as it may seem. You weren't there when Zeus castrated our father. Any of us could suffer the same."

The words just slipped out before I could stop myself. "I don't know why you are so worried about losing your manhood. By the way you act, one would think you had lost it already."

To his credit, nothing exploded. At least not literally.

I tried to salvage myself. "What I meant was, you don't have to obey Zeus all the time, you are powerful enough to make your own decisions once in a while."

"He freed me from my prison, it is a debt I cannot forget," he shouted. He swore and waved his assistants away.

I smiled. Although it defeated my purpose, it gave me satisfaction to make the usually poised Hades lose his calm. I leaned forward and put my hands on the rim of his tub. "You hide in your underground kingdom because here, you are king. You avoid Olympus because there, you are second to Zeus."

"He is my brother. I cannot turn against him!"

"And I am your niece!" I cried indignantly. He just stared at me incredulously. "On both sides," I added defensively. His courtiers tittered sycophantically. Even the dog howled with laughter.

I lamely called him a son of a Macedonian goat and a three-legged sow.

"That would make either of your grandparents a Macedonian goat and a three-legged sow."

Not surprisingly, the food stayed as immaterial as ever.

#

I longed for news of the upperworld so I wearily trudged to the banks of the Styx, where many souls were waiting in line. I wanted to hear their stories before they drank from Lethe and lost all their memories.

"Tell me, what do they say of the goddess Kore," I demanded. "What happens on the living earth?"

A listless soul in rags barely raised his eyes. "The earth lives no longer, it has died with Kore."

"What of Demeter?" I cried. "Why can't Demeter amend this?"

"She is trying, but her despair is great since she senses that of her daughter."

I sank to the ground, overwhelmed and furious. Why was Hades letting this happen? "I am Kore!" I declared, as if it would make a difference. "I live, nothing can kill me."

"They call you a traitor," came an angry voice. I stared at the speaker with astonishment. He wore a crude red sash over his tunic. "They say that that your arrest was a farce. You betrayed our cause when the Rich One offered to make you his queen. You curse the earth deliberately to attain more souls."

"Lies," I whispered. "If I were queen, I would not be as close to death as any god can be."

Made forlorn by the news, I retreated to my chambers. I was suffering from hunger and thirst, and yet Hades was having another one of his bacchanals. I could hear the yells and music from all the way across the palace. I did not mind the drink in moderation, but there were times when Hades made Dionysus look the god of grape juice.

I curled up in my bed, clutching my empty and aching stomach. I would have given my godhood for a drink of water. The walls began to swim before my eyes and I could swear that the flowers on my table were making fun of me. The narcissus, the sacred blossom of Hades, was laughing the hardest, shaking its petals and leaves. I pulled it out of the vase and tore it apart, screaming with fury. When I closed my eyes and opened them again, everything was still once more. I thoughtfully stared at the sticky mess in my hands and the Muses finally blessed me with an idea. I raised my arms and called upon the Erinyes, the goddesses of vengeance. "Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, I beseech you. I am Kore of the Fourth Generation, Great Granddaughter of the Heaven and Earth. I bear a rightful wrath against Hades, that vile chicken's toenail.

"Let him suffer whenever his sacred narcissus is separated from Gaia. May his hand be compelled to restore each stem that has been parted from the earth. I curse him."

I dropped my arms and began to giggle. What a lovely little curse this was. I rolled out of bed and half skipped to the Elysian Fields. I spotted a narcissus in a meadow and plucked it as an experiment.

Almost immediately, Hades came sprinting towards me, looking confused and irritated. He muttered darkly and took the flower from me. I smiled as he clumsily tried to repair the severed stem. He finally glued the pieces back together using some sap. He turned to leave but bent over again when I picked another narcissus.

"Stop it," he said crossly. He looked bewildered as ever.

His agitation added to my giddiness. I darted away from him, laughing madly like a small girl. I ran through the fields, picking narcissuses and flinging them left and right. That should teach him to starve me. He panted as he raced after me, pathetically collecting the flowers and tucking them back into the earth. His heavy robes flapped behind him, his sleek hair was in disarray, and he was constantly bending over in the most undignified position. Many of the souls gathered to stare at this spectacle.

When I grew out of breath and could no longer ignore the ache in my side, I tired of this sport. I paused and inspected the damage I had done to the almighty king of the underworld.

He was draped in gleaming white with silver patterns. Minus the grass stains, I thought his attire looked quite nice, but better suited for a goddess.

"You are a god of the underworld," I sneered. "Why do you not wear black?"

"You are a goddess of the harvest. Why do you not carry a sheaf of grain in your anus?"

"It is not harvest season, since you are complicit in letting the crops die."

He raised a sandaled foot and wriggled his toes. "If you were but to kiss my feet," he jeered. "I would feed you anything you'd like. This I swear upon the River Styx."

I turned around and bent over. "If you were but to kiss my behind," I retorted. "I would feed you your own words. This I swear upon the River Styx."

For good measure, I tore out an entire handful of narcissuses.

Later, I spied Hades poking and prodding at his beloved flower. Finally he gave it a sturdier, stockier stem so it would be more difficult to pick. My hands itched to tear it into a thousand pieces.

I suppose I could have bullied him into letting me eat again, but I was too proud. If he did not want to feed me, I would not take his food, and I would never grovel at his feet. I do not think he ever learned the real reason why he would forever feel compelled to keep his flowers intact. The fool would be forced to appear before every maiden in spring.

#

As I sat on the floor of my room, I examined the crown of flowers I had worn during my descent into the underworld. All but one pomegranate blossom had withered away. Even so, its petals were droopy and wrinkled. I plucked it out of the water.

"You were but a tight bud when we came to this prison," I said aloud. "And now you have bloomed, but I only wish you would turn into a fruit." I closed my hand over it but found myself holding a red gourd.

I stared. This transformation should not have been possible. I was virtually powerless, since I wore Hephaestus' manacles. When I had cursed Hades, I had invoked the magic of the Erinyes, not my own. The only possible explanation for this miracle was that the flower had originated from a seed planted in my mother's own gardens. Since it belonged to the living earth, and had been tended by my closest of kin, it heeded my command, not that of Hades. Perhaps it was even possible that Hephaestus had fiddled with my manacles at the last minute, leaving me with just enough magic to channel when it was in dire need.

A living fruit. My jailor was not here to bewitch it. I broke it open and stuffed one of the halves into my mouth. The seeds were neither fresh nor filling, but I bit at the gourd until there were only about six seeds left. I carefully tucked these away to plant later.

"The earth will live," I said breathlessly. Then I shook my head. "My newfound habit of launching into monologues is rather unsettling!"

I went deep into a remote forest in the Elysian Fields and buried three seeds. I poured water from the Pool of Lethe over the earth. "Arise, Tree of Life Worth Living," I commanded. A beautiful sapling sprung out of the dirt. I tentatively plucked a pomegranate and sampled the seeds. They were bittersweet, juicy, and solid. I sighed with relief.

I used the remaining three seeds to plant the Tree of Knowledge Worth Having. I gave it water from the Pool of Mnemosyne.

In order to perpetuate both life worth living and knowledge worth having, I took great precautions to send off a letter that could not be seen by Hades. I had written:

My dearest mother,

I bid you to not grieve my incarceration in the underworld, it is a fate that is easy to tolerate and a small punishment for the grand crime of seeking new knowledge. I know why you chose to turn away from atomos, and I cannot say that I would not have done the same. However, for the sake of humankind and my own sense of duty, I ask that you perform a simple task on my behalf. In a cave in Enna, the one where you used to take me to play when I was younger, you will find 861,945 lead tablets, on which are inscribed my exhaustive findings on atomos. I beg you to scatter these sheets to the winds, so they may eventually fall into human hands. Atomos is my gift to the mortals as well as yours, they may do as they please with it. It will be theirs to use for their own purpose and enlightenment, whenever they are ready to accept it. If you should heed my request, I shall be ever joyous. Together, we would be the deliverers of a second fire, one that is fueled by hope and cannot be extinguished by earth or water. I do not think my tale will survive, but with your help, our gift of atomos will make its mark upon human existence.

Your loving daughter,

Kore

Epilogue

Thousands of years later…

The bard was blind. He told a story of kore, beloved daughter of Demeter. Stolen by hades while picking flowers with the oceanids in the fields on enna. Lost her girdle and flowers in the struggle. Cyane turned into a spring. Demeter wept, Poseidon captured her in her vulnerable state. Kore ate six seeds of a pomegranate, had to return to her husband 6 months a year. Cause of winter and fall. By the time she was rescued, the maiden was tainted. The name of Kore, which meant maiden, was no longer appropriate. She was crowned Queen Persephone, she who destroys the light.

Thousands more years later…

On aug 6, 1956, the united states for the first time in history used the atom as a weapon. Three days later, they did so again. The great goddess wept like none other ont hose days. Nonetheless, it is said that she maintains her faith in humankind, although humankind does not stay faithful to her tale.


End file.
